WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: APRIL 6, 2014

Friday, April 4th started out early, like every weekday. I did the usual - arose a little after 4:30am, exercised a bit, showered, dressed, emptied the dishwasher, checked my email, walked the dog, and got in my car. But I didn't point it toward the office; this time I was heading back to Pittsburgh for more work on the John Burns estate.

I pulled off the PA Turnpike in Irwin about 10:15, and stopped at Arby's for an early lunch. Shortly after 11am I arrived at John's storage units. One of them was open, and filled with numismatic books and empty boxes. I knew I was in the right place.

I introduced myself to Tom Corey and Chuck Moskin, two local club members who have been helping Pat clean up John's townhouse and storage units. I sent them on a mission to retrieve the rest of John's numismatic books from his house. Then I got to work.

My task was to organize the books for sale. It was a jumble, with rarities, run-of-the-mill stuff and even household items like old mail and newspapers sometimes mixed together, in shelf after shelf in unlabeled box after unlabeled box. It was hard to know where to start, but I always figure the only way to do a job is simply to start somewhere and don't quit until you're done. So I started with the first box on a long set of tables lined up the middle of the fifteen-foot wide unit.

It was a fun chore for a bibliophile. I was sorting everything into sections based on estimated value: more expensive books in one section, midrange stuff in another section, and then everything else. The everything else in this case was mostly softbound auction catalogs and some periodicals. We also had categories for science fiction and general interest non-numismatic books. There were a lot of them, and we needed to get them out of the way.

Helpers Dick Gaetano and Tom Fort soon arrived. Tom quickly began helping pick out the better material. We learned that John had a lot of better material in these storage units; he hadn't brought it to shows for sale because he didn't want to sell it, or just couldn't get at it. There had been boxes piled in front of boxes in front of still more boxes.

But there was a lot of midrange material and complete trash mixed in with it. Tons of catalogs, but also boxes of old phone bills and supermarket advertising inserts. That stuff I passed to Tom Corey and Chuck for recycling.

Everyone else broke for lunch at different times, but I kept plowing ahead til 3:00, when I went to the gas station across the road for a snack (and to use the restroom facilities, of which the storage place had none). By the time Pat McBride arrived close to 5pm we'd sorted and labeled over three-fourths of the unit. There were books everywhere - hundreds of boxes.

At 5:15 I had to bug out. By then it was pouring down rain for the third time of the day. Whenever it rained we had to pull down the doors at the ends of the unit, plunging us into near darkness (there was one light bulb at on the end of the unit). Thankfully, I'd brought us some flashlights, which came in handy..

My first destination was my nearby hotel, where I showered and changed into the suit and tie I'd brought along. The occasion was Tom Fort's wife Gosia's birthday dinner, and I was going to meet the whole Fort family downtown at the Duquesne Club at 7am.

I navigated downtown Pittsburgh and pulled into a spot on the 4th floor of a parking garage. Once on the street I knew I was in the big city when I walked past two groups of kids who started arguing and fighting. I called 911 to report it. I described the location and events. The dispatcher asked me what "the actors" looked like. I didn't understand the word "actors" until I made her repeat it. Why talk law enforcement jargon that doesn’t make sense to real people? I almost said, "there aren't acting, they're kicking the crap out of each other for real."

The altercation had just broken up when a police cruiser screamed around the corner. The cops halted one of the boys right in front of the Duquesne Club entrance.

At this point I should note that The Duquesne Club is an old-time society club founded in 1873 by the likes of Andrew Carnegie and his robber baron friends. It's at the tippy-top top of the local social ladder; most Pittsburgers never set foot in the place, and it's been parodied by local editorial cartoonists as "Ye Olde Steele City Club", ground zero of the old boy's network.

When I told Pat McBride I was going there, he said he'd been in several times, but that he "always came in through the service entrance wearing overalls so I could wallpaper a room." I'd been lucky enough to have been there a few times before for various events. Walking past the knot of officers and witnesses, I ascended the brown sandstone steps that had welcomed members and guests for over a century.

The staff at the desk pointed me to the upstairs dining room. I walked up the carved staircase past dozens of old oil paintings and sculptures. I soon was standing in front of one of my favorite paintings, ""When Shadows Hint Death", a western scene by Charles M. Russell. Next to it was a Remington bronze of "The Bronco Buster".

Soon the Fort family arrived - Tom and Gosia Fort, their lovely daughter Annamaria, and Tom's father, Tom Sr. A retired lawyer, at 86 he's hale and hearty and still takes lunch at the Duquesne Club daily, where everyone knows him by name.

We sat down for drinks in the outer room and got caught up on family news while we waited for our table. After some time we were ushered to the dining room. Dinner conversation covered topics from Duquesne Club history to Disney films. It was really great to see them all again.

The multicourse meal was wonderful, and was followed up with a nice cake for Gosia's birthday. Tom Sr. graciously ordered me a plate of the Club's famous macaroons as well after I'd gushed about how I'd had them once before and they were to die for (they still are).

All good things must come to an end, and after our dessert it was time to go. We wandered around a bit to looks at more of the art collection, Another of my favorite artists is Pittsburgher David Gilmour Blythe, and we saw two of his works. We walked through the billiard room to the "secret' passage to the parking garage I hadn't known about. Lining the walls were a number of original "Ye Olde Steel City Club" political cartoons. Not only can the robber barons dish it out, they can also take it.

We said our goodbyes and off I went to pay for my parking and head home. I got to my hotel about 10 and worked on The E-Sylum for a while before calling it a night.

After breakfast at my hotel I headed back to the storage units. It was much colder, and I switched to a heavier jacket, and even needed my hat and gloves. I was the first to arrive and opened up the main unit we'd been working on the day before. Wow - there was still a lot to do, and I'd never left this one unit. There were four more to go! But I kept slogging along and was later joined by Tom Fort and Ed Krivoniak.

I took a phone call from one of the bidders planning to attend the sale, then got back to work. By the time Pat McBride arrived we had the unit in pretty good shape. On long tables down the middle of the forty-foot deep unit were double rows of better books in boxes. Along the walls were other good, but lesser priced books in boxes on metal shelving units. Catalogs, periodicals and other lesser material filled boxes on the floor beneath the table. There were clear aisles on both sides of the table. Whew - what a job it had been! And of course, our work this weekend was on top of all the yeoman work put in by the crew earlier; at first the unit was so stuffed there was little room to walk.

After taking a peek at the other three smaller storage units, Pat, Tom and I went out for lunch at a nice local Italian brick oven restaurant. We all had classic Italian Hoagies, which I'd complained nobody knew how to properly make back in Virginia. It was nice to sit and chat for a bit, but afterwards we all had other commitments to attend to. I got back on the highway about 3pm.

It was nice to get back home, although I had a pile of E-Sylum correspondence waiting. But my trip was both productive and enjoyable. We're all looking forward to the May PAN Show where we'll get John's coins appraised and hopefully sell much of his numismatic literature inventory. Any readers want to form an instant research library, or start a business in numismatic literature? This will be a great opportunity to purchase large lots. Stay tuned for more reports!

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web